Running a café is one of the most rewarding and most demanding things you can do in hospitality: the early starts, the constant stream of customers, the pressure to keep quality up and costs down. Almost every owner we speak to is working flat out. Almost all of them are making at least one energy mistake that costs real money.
A typical UK café spends between £5,000 and £12,000 a year on energy, using 15,000 to 35,000 kWh of electricity. That is modest next to a restaurant or a pub, but on café margins, where you are selling coffees at three or four pounds a time, every pound saved on overheads goes a long way.
Mistake 1: leaving equipment running overnight
This is the single most common waste we see. You have had a long day, you are tired, you lock up and go home. Meanwhile the espresso machine boiler is still holding temperature, the display cabinet lights are still on and the oven is quietly drawing power in standby.
A commercial espresso machine left on overnight uses roughly 3 to 5 kWh a night. That does not sound like much until you multiply by 365: 1,095 to 1,825 kWh, or £330 to £550 a year. Add cabinet lighting, oven standby and everything else and you can easily be spending £500 to £900 a year on energy an empty café does not need.
What to do instead
Write a closing down checklist and put it on the wall. Every night, switch off:
- The espresso machine boiler. A modern machine is back up to temperature in 15 to 25 minutes, so switching off half an hour before close costs you nothing.
- Display cabinet and counter lighting. The fridge itself stays on, the lights do not need to.
- Ovens and toasters, fully off rather than on standby.
- Front of house heating or air conditioning, ideally on a timer or a proper thermostat.
Timer plugs on anything that does not need to run outside trading hours pay for themselves within weeks.
Mistake 2: being on the wrong type of tariff
The right tariff for a café depends entirely on how you operate, and we regularly find owners on a structure that does not match their usage at all.
- Fixed rate. The same unit rate whenever you use the electricity. Simple and predictable.
- Time of use. Different rates at different times of day, usually cheaper overnight and early morning, dearer through the daytime peak.
For a standard café open from seven to five, a fixed rate is usually the better bet, because your usage is concentrated in exactly the hours a time of use tariff prices highest. But if you are a bakery café firing ovens from four in the morning, a time of use structure can be worth pricing on those early hours alone.
What to do instead
Check what you are on. Your bill will say. Then ask whether it matches how you actually trade. If you are not sure, the bill checker compares your current rate against the market, or send us your details and we will look at the usage pattern with you.
Mistake 3: ignoring the standing charge
When owners compare deals they focus on the unit rate, and fairly, because it is the biggest component. But the standing charge, the daily fee you pay simply for being connected, gets overlooked.
Business standing charges typically run from 25p to 90p a day. The gap between the two ends of that range is around £237 a year, which on a small café bill is not nothing. Worse, some deals pair an attractive unit rate with a high standing charge so the headline looks better than the total.
What to do instead
Always compare the total annual cost, not the unit rate on its own. Multiply your annual kWh by the unit rate, then add the standing charge multiplied by 365. That is the real number. Any honest comparison does this for you, and ours always does. Our guide to your energy bill shows where to find both figures.
Mistake 4: not comparing at renewal
Your contract is ending, your supplier sends a renewal offer, it looks reasonable enough and you sign it, because switching sounds like hassle and you have a café to run.
This is one of the most expensive habits in business energy. A renewal offer from your existing supplier is rarely the best deal available. As with insurance, loyalty is not rewarded, and the rate offered to a new customer is usually better than the one offered to keep you.
What to do instead
Put a reminder in your phone for three months before the contract ends. That is enough time to compare and move before you either roll onto a deemed rate, which is expensive, or get auto renewed on poor terms, which is also expensive. Better still, let us hold the date: when you switch through us we come back to you before it comes round again.
Mistake 5: ignoring what you could move off peak
Many owners assume a café is all daytime usage and there is nothing to be done about when the electricity gets used. There is usually something, particularly if you are on a time of use tariff or could move to one.
- Dishwashers. Run the main load after close rather than in the afternoon rush, and if your cheaper period starts in the evening, a short delay moves the whole cycle into it.
- Baking and prep. If you bake in house, very early morning work can fall into a cheaper band on some tariffs.
- Defrost cycles. Schedule them overnight or early rather than through peak trading.
- Device charging. Tablets, card machines and phones can charge overnight rather than through the day.
Individually these are small. Together across a year they add up, and none of them need any investment, just a change of routine.
What to do instead
Ask whether a time of use tariff suits your hours. If you already have off peak rates, find out exactly when they apply and move what you can into them.
Why this matters now
Energy is one of the few costs a café can move without touching the menu or the service. When you are selling coffees and sandwiches there is a limit to what you can charge, so cost pressure comes out of the margin unless you go after the overheads directly.
None of the five mistakes above are exotic. They are simple things that, once fixed, keep money in the business rather than in your supplier's.
What to do next
- Check your contract. In contract, out of contract, or about to renew? That decides how urgent this is.
- Compare the market. Cafés sit inside hospitality, one of the ten sectors we cover, with dedicated pages for cafés and coffee shops, high street bakeries and coffee roasters.
- Take the quick wins. Write the closing down checklist, check your fridge seals, get LED quotes. There are more in the energy saving tips guide.
Save on average 40% on your business energy bills.. More if you are on out-of-contract or deemed rates. Savings are estimates: typical spend from published UK benchmarks, multiplied by a 30% to 50% band around the 40% our customers save on average (the business's own figure, not a published dataset). Your saving depends on your current contract, usage and live supplier prices. See how we estimate.
Your café deserves better than overpaying for energy. Get your free, no obligation comparison.